I would have applauded this a few years back, but now that excellent deals offered through digital distribution services are the norm, $5 rentals seem pointless. The only way this new services makes sense for me as a consumer is if new titles are offered VERY quickly after release. Otherwise, I might as well wait for it to go on sale for $5-$10 and get the entire game.

Ruffiana wrote on Aug 27, 2010, 20:42:Movies have multiple revenue streams. If movies were only ever released on DVD direct to consumers then it would be an apt comparison, but by the time a movie reaches the home DVD ownership phase, it's already had a run in movie theaters and probably made a profit. It's been available on pay-per-view, and it's been on HBO/Showtime for a couple of months. Even after it's put onto a DVD and sold at Best Buy they can still make money from a film by licensing the rights to cable or network stations. Unlike games, movies have much more longevity. People will watch buy and a movie from decades ago.

Music has rapidly changed it's business model over the years to deal with digital format and ease of copying/distribution. Like films, a recording artist can bring in money from live venues and concerts (akin to movie theaters in being a unique, one time experience), album sales, individual track sales through iTunes, Amazon, etc...licensing of songs for use in film, television, or games. Like movies, music is ageless. People will buy music that they like and hold on to it. Unlike films or games, it takes far, far fewer people to produce a piece of music...so the financial investment and risks are much lower.

As for books, it doesn't take multi-million dollar investments and huge teams of people to create a book...so there is substantially less financial risk involved. There's also some value of a book associated with the physical good, the printed word on paper...and those goods do degrade over time. They grow musty, their spine gets broken, pages tear, print fades. Unlike a game, people are likely to hang on to a book for decades and re-read years, decades, or even centuries after they were written. Keep in mind that books in digital format is a fairly new industry, but it's already having an impact on retailers world-wide.

So while the formats of various media are similar their costs to produce and markets are radically different. Games really only have one market for making money, in a very limited time frame, and yet are still are on par with films in terms of cost to produce, market, and distribute. The reason you don't hear more from the film, music, or book industry about used sales is because it's just not cutting into their profitability in the same way...but that could very well change in the future.

You're arguing differences in business models, not fundamental differences in the products themselves.

As others have already suggested, if game publishers aren't able to survive with their current business models, then they should should probably explore other options, rather than complain about a long established consumer right.

I'm considering buying Saints Row 2, but I've heard bad things about the PC port, particularly that the frame rate is terrible. Anyone have experience running it on a X4 955 w/ 8800GTS (G92)? I just want to know if it's at least playable before purchasing it.

Edit: Is any of the Borderland DLC worth buying for single player only?

Wow, SC2 is already being marked down to $10.00. I guess abandoning your user base by turning what was a unique RTS game into another C&C clone didn't pan out. With that being said, for ten bucks I'll buy it and play through the SP campaign.

gilly775 wrote on Apr 16, 2010, 10:15:Really? Vital? And how come this DRM isn't vital to companies like StarDock and yet they are selling games well with no DRM???

Because Stardock games cost 20-50 times less to make and subsequently the sales required (and obtained) are significantly less? Half a million sales of a game is a success for Stardock. Half a million sales for the high budget games would result in the studio being shutdown and the employees being fired.

I doubt Ubisoft's PC only releases (Silent Hunter 5 and Settlers 7) had budgets 20-50 times that of Sins of a Solar Empire. And by the same token, I doubt Ubisoft is depending on PC sales to get their big budgets titles such as AC2 or SC:C in the black.

It has nothing to do with the actual dollar amount, it's the perceived value that people are looking at.If a publisher is going to charge 1/6th the price of the full game for a DLC pack, they better be offering roughly 1/6th the content of the full game, or many people will perceive the DLC to be lacking value.

I don't think most people believe that below some arbitrary dollar amount getting value back for their money stops being important. If it were that way, grocery stores would never put anything on-sale. After all, who would care about saving 50 cents or a dollar on an item.

As it stands, I don't have any problem with what they are doing. It makes sense to offer a less expensive legal alternative in markets rife with piracy. However, it does go to show that a lot of the hoopla about lost revenue due to piracy in their primary markets is often a lot of hot air. If it wasn't, why not use the same strategy in the US and Europe?

I thought blizzard already announced their plan to monetize bnet using a free to play system with paid "extras". I don't see why they would abandon that model before it even gets started.

That makes as much sense as if I claimed the lack of AC2 and SH4 on the list proves people won't buy games with intrusive DRM.

What affect Ubisoft's decision to include such draconian DRM has had on sales is only known by those with access to total sales numbers and pre-release sales projections. Even then, it is difficult to factor why any product does better or worse than projections.

Sure, all of those people are just buying it to play SNES games right? Hahahaha. Easily the biggest load of crap you have ever posted. PSP piracy is rampant pal, stop making excuses.

While I haven't really been keeping up on the PSP "hacking" scene, I believe a large contributing factor for the poor PSP game sales is sony continually trying to kill the "unauthorized" software people keep creating for the PSP (emulators and the like).New PSP games force a bios update to play, which screws up everything non-sony you have installed. I think quite a few people may be making the choice to continue, as you say, using their SNES emulator rather then playing the latest PS2 rehash.